Asthma: how to take better care of yourself?

March 06, 2020

Spring is coming up and like every year, you are torn: even if the arrival of the beautiful days fills you with joy, you know that the pollens will also be there. If, like the 4 million French people, you have asthma, discover our advice and our smart health connected tips to take care of you!

What if I have asthma?

A common disease, asthma is a chronic inflammation of the bronchial tubes, causing the airways to over-react to certain substances. The undeniable cause of asthma? Allergy, detected in approximately 80% of adults and 95% of children with asthma1. Faced with this hypersensitivity to allergens, respiratory sensitivities, wheezing and a dry cough may appear several times a day and be accentuated during, in particular, intense effort.

Did you know ? Occupational asthma is soaring and accounts for approximately 9% of asthma treated! 2 Some trades such as bakers, hairdressers, painters and even healthcare professionals are more likely to experience discomfort, given their daily exposure to pollutants or dust.

Genetic but also environmental factors!

According to the WHO, "Up to 24% of the world's diseases are caused by preventable environmental exposures." Even if genetic factors are not to be excluded, air pollution is more likely to worsen asthma symptoms. Who is responsible for your burning sensations in the lungs? Ozone and fine particle pollution! To protect yourself, avoid going out (sports or not) during the ozone peaks, that is, in the afternoon and early evening on hot summer days.

Our interior can also be a real allergen nest! Our furniture, paintings or decorations emit pollutants deemed carcinogenic (benzene, formaldehyde, etc.). The mites in the carpets and even the dander of our four-legged friends also do not make our task easy! It is therefore advisable to ventilate daily, even for a few minutes, to reduce exposure to these pollutants.

Have you ever experienced any of your symptoms at work? Beyond the allergenic professions as discussed previously, the culprits are often ventilation or carpets, real dust shelters. Note that the labor code stipulates the protection of air quality and therefore the cleaning / maintenance of these.

Asthma and smart health connected pulse oximeter

If you have asthma, you may have heard of the smart health connected oximeter, this small sensor placed on the end of a finger, whose mission is to assess the amount of oxygen circulating in the blood of the arteries. But what about its real effectiveness?

"The smart health connected oximeter can detect a possible asthma attack": INTOX 

According to Doctor Jesus Gonzales, head of respiratory equipment in the pulmonology department at La Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris, pulse oximeters cannot detect an asthma attack. Indeed, when you are not in crisis, your oxygen saturation curve is almost normal. It is only during a crisis that the latter is in free fall. Measuring the amount of oxygen before an asthma attack is therefore not useful: the oximeter will not be able to detect it before it appears.

"The pulse oximeter allows better monitoring of chronic pulmonary bronchitis" INFO

People with COPD experience a dramatic decrease in their oxygen saturation when they experience fever or fatigue. The oximeter is therefore a useful smart health connected device to be able to detect any drop and communicate it instantly to your doctor.

1 (European quest recently published in the ALLERGY review “Fighting For Breath”: “The limitations of severe asthma: the results of a european survey”).

2 IHME 2014